


Binste

by Manuuk7



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 12:40:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14544954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manuuk7/pseuds/Manuuk7
Summary: A love story with a dramatic ending





	Binste

An AU TOS story, not written for monetary compensation. All Star Trek rights are the properties of other corporations.

xx

Kirk was pleased as could be, he had brought the Enterprise back to Starbase 4 without losing anyone or anything in the process, his ship was whole, his crew was all accounted for, everyone was in a good mood, and Starfleet had had the wonderful idea to chase everybody off the ship so that they could effectuate necessary maintenance and fine-tune anything that needed fine-tuning. He felt like whistling a happy tune, the happy tune of someone who didn't have a care in the world except where to eat and what to do to while the hours between waking and sleeping.

That lasted exactly three days.

On the fourth day, he was antsy for the ship to be ready so he could get back on board, he always forgot how boring he found life on the ground. Or perhaps it was not about living on the ground, it was about living on the edge of the danger that accompanied every new mission and every new discovery.

On the fifth day, he started pestering the authorities about his ship and the repairs and the timeline. Fairly quickly that day, the entire bureaucracy knew the incoming identifier for the captain's communicator and they stopped answering his calls.

On the sixth day, he reached out to Bones, because it would be more fun to spend time with the sarcastic doctor even watching the grass grow than alone waiting for his ship to be ready. Bones didn't want to be reminded about Starfleet, as that would remind him of his life before he joined Starfleet, and he didn't bother to take his call.

On the seventh day, he reached out to Spock, because as boring as the Vulcan's pursuits might be, it would be better than being alone waiting for his ship. Vulcans are creatures of logic and logic dictated that his commanding officer must be accommodated. Thus Spock found himself that afternoon away from the research he was conducting in the library of Vusteon, an edifice and collection of interstellar reputation, and instead played stoic companion to Captain Kirk's idea of entertainment.

It would be fair to say that neither party benefited greatly from the exchange. Kirk would have much preferred having someone of the female persuasion to spend the day with, and then the evening, and the day after that. His gaze kept being drawn to anything walking by that had boobs and many times Spock sighed internally with long patience, wondering why the captain had chosen to spend the day with him when obviously he would have preferred to find a female for sexual relations.

It was during one of those times that Kirk very unexpectedly turned to Spock and asked "Have you ever been in love?"

Once he had regained control of his bucking eyebrow, Spock seriously considered the question, as seriously as he would consider any question he was asked, before clearing his throat for an answer. "I have been infatuated before, at an age where I might have thought that such infatuation was love. But if you are asking whether I have found a consort, no I have not."

The answer came as a surprise to Kirk, who was personally very well situated to know that consorts and Vulcan and love were generally not part of the same equation.

"But I thought your people didn't consort for love?" Tact not being one of Kirk's defining characteristics.

"Perhaps I do not wish to follow the path of 'my people'." Letting him know the question had been insensitive but that his friend was still talking to him.

Kirk was surprised at the answer. He had never heard Spock declare openly that he did not want to follow Vulcan tradition. But, as he came to realize, that view was somewhat unenlightened considering that by choosing to be in Stafleet Spock had already made it very clear that he wanted to forge a path of his own.

The unspoken part being that it was not by spending their lives on a starship in the middle of space that either of them were likely to find love or a consort. And Kirk being who he was, he had to exteriorize the thought. "Sometimes I wonder how I'm ever going to find someone to love if I keep spending my life on a starship, exploring the unknown."

Now the other eyebrow started bucking and Spock had to rein it in. He privately thought that being planet-bound may not suit the youthful captain though at the same time he had to recognize that was a realistic appreciation of their prospects for a meaningful relationship. Though Vulcans living to an advanced age, he had many more opportunities to find a relationship at some point in his life then his Human friend did.

"The past is not an accurate predicator of the future" was his somewhat cryptic answer. It was not because Kirk had been on a starship until this point that he would be on a starship for the remainder of his life. He trusted Kirk to understand the reply.

The rest of the day was spent in conversations of a less personal nature. Finally it was time for Kirk to go back to his hotel room, and for Spock to catch up on the research plans that were interrupted by the Captain. They parted company on the large square plaza in front of the library, a work of logical lines and beauty.

"See you aboard."

"Of course, Captain." Spock turned back towards the library.

Kirk was almost out of the general perimeter when he hard a whistling sound that raised the hackles on his back. He knew that sound only too well. He whipped around just in time to see part of the building explode in a cloud of debris before the shockwave reached him, throwing him on the ground. When he got up, coughing, the dust and smoke of the explosion were so thick he couldn't see any of what had been there. He started running back to where he had last seen Spock, coughing as he breathed the dust, trying to wave it away from his face. Finally, he saw a survivor teeter out of the cloud, covered with a thin grey film of particulates, doubled over in a coughing fit. The air started clearing, approaching sirens signaled that emergency services were near. The dust cleared over an image of devastation.

Nothing was left of the plaza.

xxx  
]Spock woke up in his rooms, illuminated by the rays of the rising sun. He stretched and got up, enjoying the view of the mountains circling Shi'khar. As many days and months and years as he had been back on Vulcan, he couldn't remember when he arrived, he had found the view to be a source of great satisfaction. It was not illogical to find pleasure in nature's beauty, especially the beauty of one's homeworld, especially when one had spent most of one's life away from such homeworld, out in the depths of space.

The late morning found him climbing the stairs to the Shi'khar Academy, comfortable in his robes, the day not advanced enough for the heat to have become oppressive. He was reminded of the constant chill of Enterprise, the sodden feel of the atmosphere calibrated for a different species, and inhaled more deeply, both out of pleasure for the dry feel of the sun and out of pain for relationships from long ago, before he had come back to Vulcan, to teach or to study, it was all a matter of perspective.

His steps carried him through the square plaza with geometric pavers, reminiscent of a different plaza on another world, so many different plazas and configurations, all types of geometric arrangements. He had seen many things in his life. A life well lived.

He had expected coming back to Vulcan would be a difficult adjustment, trying to fit again in a society that seemed sterile and overly ordered. He had found instead a wealth of stimulation, a richness of culture, his mind appreciating and enjoying the defined structure and order that allowed a deeper focus on any and all matters. He no longer felt rejected, the people around him, his peers, had grown up, and so had he. He had his many accomplishments to back him up, as he walked up the stairs to the library, with him were the outlines of all the lives he had saved, of all the deeds he had done, of everything he had seen and known and been a part of.

He placed his palm on the reader right before she did. He had seen the petite woman walk through the plaza at an angle from his steps, absorbed in the pad she was carrying, her hood already up against the sun. He had not been looking at her but he had somehow registered she was Vulcan, of an age past the follies of youth, of a step as self-confident as his was. She was also obviously on auto-pilot, did not look up from her reading until he placed his palm on the reader and she inadvertently covered his hand with hers.

She whipped her hand back as if she had been stung, coloring a deep shade of green as she mumbled the customary apology, embarrassed to the core by her faux pas, it was poor enough form that she had touched him, she had covered his hand with hers, a motion fraught with deep sexual meaning. He customarily accepted her excuses, accustomed by his time among Humans to provide shallow comfort, feeling his ears color in turn as the Vulcan in him reacted to the sexual innuendo of the unexpected touch, all the while knowing that the unprotected contact meant she had felt a shadow of his thoughts as he had felt a shadow of hers. He could never explain to Humans how unsettling this was for a telepathic species. He had the sudden vision that an appropriate analogy would be having a stranger come inside one's house unexpected and walk on one in the shower, seeing more than one would have chosen to reveal, more than they would have ever been allowed to see.

"I am Spock." At least if he introduced himself, it would take some of the aspects of being a stranger away. It still did not make it right, it made it less difficult.

"My name is T'Roal," she responded, her blush less pronounced as she regained control of her physiology, only the tips of her ears showing how embarrassed she felt.

"I am a lecturer at the Academy." Another building block of familiarity, still enormously insufficient. One did not undress oneself fore another on the basis of a given name and a profession.

"I am a research specialist in pre-Awakening phenomenology," she responded.

Spock raised an eyebrow in interest. It was an arcane subject. Would he have chosen to show himself naked to a research specialist in pre-Awakening phenomenology named T'Roal? He would never know, the decision had been forced by her indiscretion, however involuntary. Considering the opposite logical argument, would she have chosen to present herself without clothes to an academy lecturer named Spock. He didn't think so.

He could at this point retract himself from the interaction and the immediate area, leaving both of them with the embarrassing knowledge until it became a memory and then a humoristic moment. But something wouldn't let him. Perhaps old reflexes from his time on Enterprise, or perhaps learned behavior from his ambassador father. So he handed her another building block, another hint of who he was that perhaps would make it more acceptable that she had shown herself without clothes to his mind.

"I was born in Shi'khar." There was no logical reason why this particular piece of personal history would be the one he selected as an offering. But he did.

"I was born in Nadul'Khar but have resided in Shi'khar since I was four." She had provided two logical arguments, one more than him. He needed to right the scales.

"I left when I was seventeen." Did he really leave at that age? How young that was. How did he imagine knowing enough about the world and about life to leave that he left at that age. But he did. And he had. The witlessness of youth.

She was the one who retracted herself, excusing her leaving on not wanting to be late at her functions, shooting him a sidelong glance as she left that made him want to know... He didn't know what.

xxx

The second time they met was when they both happened to break their research day at the same hour. She was already in the eating chamber when he entered and he hadn't noticed her. It was unsure if he had whether he would have kept proceeding into the room.

"T'Roal." He inclined his head in recognition when he realized she was standing in his way, having just taken a few seconds to greet another acquaintance.

"Spock." She inclined her head in response, her glance shifting down and to the side in remembered embarrassment.

He had not really expected to encounter her again, as he had never before seen her in or around the academy complex. And he was quite certain, based on her reaction, that she would have preferred never to run into him again, in or out of the academy complex. Which was somewhat surprising as, other the fact that their reaction was in large part due to the unexpected nature of their discovery of each other's thoughts and feelings, Vulcans had little complexes when it came to disrobing or the naked form.

Spock wondered idly whether there was a significance to the fact each encounter with T'Roal brought to his mind the image of her being naked. He was too aware of the workings of the mind to discard it outright. But while he entertained the thought that perhaps his mind was trying to hint at some larger truth, he could not imagine that this should be the case and decided, very logically, that it must simply be because of the mind-exchange when they first met.

They had already lingered for five point three seconds longer than was necessary or appropriate to a casual meeting in the eating chambers, and he gravely took leave of her presence. She cast him a sidelong glance as he did so and he felt the tips of his ears start burning. He didn't know why.

xxx

Their third encounter was as serendipitous as the first two, he leaving the grounds, watching the setting sun over the mountains, mesmerized by the reds, oranges and ochres that were lighting up the sky and the earth, appreciating the cool beauty in the logical ordering of nature.

He didn't know how he had not seen her as he got close to the parking tiers, but all of a sudden she was there, almost as if she had appeared out of thin air. He found that he swallowed abruptly, the image of her dancing in his mind. He did not know about falling in love, the way Humans do. He only knew that he wanted to be where she was, that he would follow her until they both fell off the edge of the world.

And he also knew that it was too soon, that he knew nothing of her apart from what he had sensed that first time, and that she knew nothing of him. That he may find some flaw in her, though he already knew he would disregard any flaw she might have, and that she might find him flawed at an elemental level, he who was only half of her world. And he realized that he wanted her to know everything he was, everything he had been and everything he would become.

"The setting sun is pleasant." He said as way of an introduction. It was more than pleasant, it was a symphony of colors, it held the promise of tomorrows, it haloed the world she walked in - and it would have been nothing but a sunset had she not been there.

She once again gave him a sidelong glance. It did not seem physiologically possible but his heart started beating faster, he felt warmer even though the outside temperature had not changed. "I have heard of you." She responded, leaving him to wonder what it meant.

But then she had to go, this time taking official leave, they had met enough times now that they had a passing acquaintanceship, even beyond their first involuntary knowledge.

In turn he lifted his hand in the ta'al, the vertical blessing of their people. And then she was gone, so suddenly that he wondered if perhaps he had dreamed her. But no, he saw her craft skittering away. He would see her again, of that he was certain.

xxx

His name is Spunt.

He is a gemologist associated with the academy of Nadal, not an affiliate and not a lecturer. He has lost his first wife to the sickness that had left her barren and unable to have children. Perhaps that is the reason for the dour look that is a permanent fixture of his face. Or perhaps it reflects that he is someone who arrogantly believes himself to be more than who he is.

And he is his rival for T'Roal affections. Except for the fact she has no affection for Spunt.

Spock shuts off the computer screen where he has been researching everything he can find about the man, any hint that might give him a path to approach him and ask that she be released from her promise. For all he knows, time is pressing, it won't be long before either of them are in need, and negotiations will require finding a replacement to keep Spunt alive during ponn farr. There is also the secondary concern of which relatives to entrust with the negotiations. T'Pau and Sarek are dead, so is his mother, though he cannot remember attending their funerals. But he must have. It would be counter-productive to attempt negotiating directly with Spunt on his own behalf, it would not lead either of them to logic.

T'Roal comes back in the room and he walks over to her, extending two fingers in a warm embrace. She kisses him back, her fingers playing with his mischeviously before she walks to the door. "We must not be late." She waits for him to follow her, they are going to the academy together, like they have been for - is it months or years, he cannot remember.

They step into the rising sun, her robe swaying slightly from the breeze that is whipping the tall spires of Shi'Kahr, both of them already mentally preoccupied with the day ahead, the next step in their theoretical research, the answers and questions that may arise, the hypotheses that need to be proven.

They both stop in their tracks when they cross the limits of the compound. Spunt is there, standing in the street, waiting for them, his face an emotionless mask. Spock keeps walking, knowing that T'Roal will be unable to move from the spot where she has been surprised, torn between the imperative to join her betrothed and the fact she has already chosen Spock. It takes fifteen point three yards before he is standing face to face with Spunt, a measure that a part of his mind notes, a cool harbor of facts in a sea of feelings.

"My family is preparing to reach out to your family." Letting Spunt know that Spock's family is about to start the negotiating process, will start negotiating in earnest, that T'Roal is staying with him.

"She-who-is-my-intended must come with me." The coarse claim that she is his, devoid of subtlety or grace.

T'Roal becomes animated at the thought, they hear her speak all the way to where they are standing almost chest to chest. "I shall not."

At that Spunt talks directly to her. Once again it is the three of them together, the rest of the world has disappeared in a gray haze. "We will meet at the appointed time and place. You shall come with me then."

Spock's eyes narrow in irritation. How can Spunt not see she is not his. He is a self-important middling man, who will crush her soul under the weight of his ordinariness. "The logical progression is to let our families exchange their thoughts." The so-soft warning that not to let families handle the situation might result in blood shed, the waste of life that Vulcan abhorrs over all.

"Let our families talk if that is your view, honorable Spock" the slight emphasis on 'honorable' to let him know that he is anything but. "But I will not release my claim."

Behind him, Spock feels T'Roal's spirit gasp. Spunt has so much as told them that she will be his when his ponn farr comes. "We shall see," is the only reply he deems worthy of being made.

Then Spunt is gone and he is back at T'Roal's side, fingers extended for her to grasp and know that everything is fine, that he will be there always.

He cannot help thinking that if Kirk was there, his friend would find a way, who has invented so many ways to cheat fate and death. Like that time on Vuskeon. Though he doesn't remember exactly what it is that Jim has done then. But it will come back to him, and then they will be rid of Spunt.

xxx

"He refuses all arrangements." Part of him wants to preserve her from the truth but she had a right to know that all entreaties and negotiations with her betrothed have failed against his steely resolve. He will not consider another consort than her and he has openly declared that only death would release her of his claim.

T'Roal is going through the commands on the food processing unit, the freshly plucked vegetables neatly arranged in tidy piles of diminishing volume. He knows that it is something he will always remember, the colors of the vegetables and how she has made neat regular pyramids of the foods that will go into their weekly stew. She turns towards him with an uncharacteristic sigh, not looking directly at him, her gaze angled to a point in the distance. The wall, perhaps.

"I have known him since he was a child" she finally intones, the time has come to provide context, to fill in the blanks in the story that don't make sense. "Even then, he was rigid and self-important, wanting everything to be done exactly according to tradition." She looks at him. "Spunt will not change. He followed his family choice for his first consort, only met her once." Letting him know in so many words how closely he followed tradition that he didn't even see his wife outside of the betrothal ceremony. 'Then why hadn't he stayed in Nadul'Kahr and away from T'Roal', the thought that won't leave Spock's mind. Leave them alone to their happiness until... She looks up at him, sensing his question through the bond. "A seven-year-old is easily controlled." She looks down and to the side. "I was foolish to accept my family's choices when my first husband died. There was plenty of time and I knew he was not the right consort for me." Looking at him plaintively. "But I thought it wouldn't matter as I was already dead inside. I did not care that I might spend the rest of my life without knowing pleasantness again."

Spock nods. It was all eminently logical. Her family's concern for her would unfortunately prove to be her undoing, unless he can think of a way to prevent Spunt from claiming her, to prevent the ponn farr. He does not know how he can do that.

"How much time?" She understands the question to be when will her ponn farr come over her, their cycles have been coordinated during the betrothal ceremony. What she feels will be what he feels.

She shakes her head in sorrow. "The ceremony was five years ago already." She looks up at him "There is not much time left." She grabs his hand to stress what she is about to say. "You have been off-world, you know their ways. We could leave, settle somewhere else." She need not finish the thought. With him at her side she will survive her Time, but Spunt will not. Unwilling as he is to accept a replacement, it is predictable that he will also refuse the help of the temple Dedicates and prefer to die in atrocious pain.

"I cannot do that." He whispers back to T'Roal. And he knows that she has only proposed because she knows he will refuse, that she also cannot condemn a man to death whose only crime has been to want her against all reason.

She passes her hand over his cheek, feeling his skin, feeling his mind, then abruptly turns away, so that her back is the only thing he can look at. "Let us go." Through the nascent bond, he understands she wants to spend time with him, alone, without the obligations of their positions and their charges.

And he, who has never taken a vacation on Enterprise, who considers rest and recreation to be illogical wastes of individual energies, think it is eminently logical that they would spend time together away from the world, putting their lives on hold so that they can cherish their relationship. Even if they have the rest of their lives to spend together, it will not be enough time.

xxx

He doesn't remember where they are and how they came to their place of rest. She is coming back from the outside with the sun in her hair and he almost breaks into a Human smile. As they have come to know each other better, he is slowly relaxing the tight control over his Human half, knowing that she will accept those alien elements within him, that she will not reject him outright because of an unfortunate genetic combination.

He experiences happiness. At least he believes that is what Humans call happiness. It is a feeling of supreme pleasantness, that all the pieces of the world are aligned exactly in the right manner. Or perhaps it is the absence of loneliness that he experiences. The feeling that his mind has found its perfect half.

She is biting in a piece of fruit and some of the juice mars the corner of her lips. A dab of nectar. And before he can think about it and stop himself, he has her head in his hands and is sucking the juice off the corner of her mouth. The sensation sets his lips aquiver and he can tell she feels the reverberation through the bond. Her lips open in partial acceptance and his mouth finds her, insistently claim the full range of sensory experience. He knows they will end up on the low couch, he is already angling her body there, his erection hard against her side.

Happiness.

xxx

His eyes open suddenly in the middle of the night. What is it that has called him to awareness before the lights dawn? There is a moment of confusion, when he doesn't know where he is. Then it all coalesces back into the rational, her naked body next to him, their limbs entwined, full of lovemaking. His heartrate steadies. This is reality.

A sound from her makes his head jerk towards her as a cold weight settles onto his heart, low under his ribcage. She is sleeping, possibly dreaming. It is not the slight noise that just escaped her that has come to freeze his blood. There are minute drops of sweat beading on her forehead, right at her hairline and the cold truth seeps through to him, leads his limbs with foreboding.

Ponn farr. The ponn farr is on her.

It must be on Spunt also. He knows that soon will sound the tinkle of the bells calling the wedding party to the ancestral site. Calling the mating party. It doesn't deserve to be called a wedding. And then she won't be his anymore.

He has to stop it.

And because he is a man and the enormity of what he needs to undertake has been dwarfing him since it first came to him, the moment he laid eyes on Spunt, he puts a hand on her naked breast, feeling the breath animating her chest.

She wakes up and stares at him, black eyes into black eyes, the unspoken between them. And because she is a woman and the fires of ponn farr are starting their burning under her skin, she mirrors his motion with a hand onto his chest.

As if pushed by its own volition her hand travels lower, onto his stomach, the well-known ridges of the capsular ribcage framing the flat expanse. Lower still, over the soft intestine meandering, until it reaches... She doesn't need to stretch so much, it already has reached. She grabs the proud flagpole. It's hers, and hers alone. Her mouth is on him and she shares a little bit of the fever, a taste of the hell writhing her limbs, a foretaste of the heaven she offers him. He lays supine as she assaults his lips, her fingers maintaining her hold, her mouth finding where his shoulder meets his neck and marking him as hers.

The pain triggers the ancestral desires and the ponn farr is now his, until completion shall free them. Shall free him. She can no longer be freed, only through the parody of a ceremony that will mark her as another's. Despair animates her soul. He feels it through the budding connection and his mouth closes on her breast, ravishing her breath, there is no reality other than the swirl of unsatisfied desire. He is licking at the sweat beading her skin, his teeth take hold of her shoulder but he doesn't mark her. Not yet. She still has a wedding to go through. He pushes into her and she pushes back her welcome. He is hers. They are locked into the rhythm of the flesh, his hands roaming all over her.

The aggression of ponn farr flips him onto his back and she is sitting on top of him, unclenched from his coupling, riding him with the desperation of a starched soul in the desert. Riding him. Riding him. Until the white of his eyes grips her and he bucks into her with a strength that threatens to unseat her, and, grabbing her thigh into a stretching hold, rolls atop her and gives free ride to the adrenal aggression, deep and slow, slow and deep, deep, deep, until they both pulse and twitch and lay still.

He is sated. But the fires on ponn farr are anew upon her, the embers already rekindling their slow burn. The flames are in her eyes. The fire is calling to another blood across the betrothal bond. The seeds of the future are being laid in the present.

xxx

Spunt steps on the altar and strikes the gong with a trembling hand, his entire body a quivering arrow of need. The bells answer the call. She is coming. He turns to where her cortege will soon cross the stone circle that marks the ancestral altar, the appointed place.

The bells are jingling like a flock of starlings, too many bells, Spock feels T'Roal's irritation at the sound. He walks with her to Spunt's family dais, her step laden, she does not want to be there, she does not want to walk those last steps, she does not want Spunt, she wants none of it.

And in that moment he understands T'Pring and Stonn, she not wanting to be bound against her heart, unable to overcome the echo of his ponn farr. And he is pleased with the realization of Stonn's humiliation, that he would let another man fight for him. Spock would never do so, even if there were another Jim standing next to Spunt. And more fleeting, the question whether Stonn and T'Pring have been able to achieve any kind of happiness, she a cold-hearted calculating le-matya and he knowing she dominated him even before their coupling. He has never enquired and has never bothered to concern himself with her whereabouts but absently notes that even though they walk the same circles, he has never heard of children from their union.

T'Roal walks to the center of the stone-bound appointed place, alone. There is no marriage party. Nobody is walking with her, she had no parents or siblings or adult children to bear her witness. He has walked with her to the stone circle and stops there. For him to step forward as a guest given his intentions would be a desecration.

T'Roal turns to look at him in spite of the fire coursing through her veins, uncertain why he stopped. She knows not. He has not told her, not shared her plans with her. As she is struggling with the ponn farr and the wedding, alone, this is his struggle to bear, alone. She knows she belongs to him. There is no other consideration. Nothing more need be said.

The priest is wizened with age, grooves carved in his face by the slow erosion of the years. He turns to the meager assembly, the guards and their fighting gear, the groom and his marriage party, the bride that won't be, Spock. He encompasses all of them with his gaze. He has seen many unions, those that were and a few that never came to pass, he has read in their katras the truth of why they came, he already knows. It is not for him to judge. Vulcan itself has already judged her people, cursing them with the ancient drive.

He raises his hands in blessing, slow and steady, as he chants. "This is the Vulcan heart. This is the Vulcan soul. This is the Vulcan way. Kah-if-farr." The call of the blood has been sounded, to be answered by the blood of life, spilled or unspilled. The groom strikes the gong again, intent on completing the ceremony. T'Roal steps forth.

"Kal-if-fee!"

The shout comes from the border of stones, at the entrance to the appointed place. The priest looks over at Spock. This is as was expected.

T'Roal has spun around, mouth half-agape, trembling in an attempt to align the words in her mind and the muscles in her mouth. She finds that she cannot. She just looks at Spock, seeing him as through a wall of flames. He is water quenching her aching soul, he is wind cooling her fevered brow, he is the moist earth pliant under her step. It is he she wants to quench the fires. They have not spoken, she did not know. She turns back to the priest. The raging thunder in her head does not allow much conscious thought. The priest looks at her not unkindly. It takes great courage these days to call the challenge.

The priest turns to the circled assembly, clear and loud. "Kal-if-fee has been declared. As it is since the dawn of times, as it will be for all tomorrows, T'Roal, are thee prepared to become the property of the victor?"

She looks over at Spock again. That he would have let her know. What would she have done? She would have... she would have refused. Even if academia has rendered Spunt weak and soft, his softness is that of the harsh stones of Vulcan. How will Spock ever prevail, his body weakened by human blood? And yet she knows that prevail he will. Because it is the wish of the universe, apparent in how their minds resonate to one another and their bodies cusp each other. And if he doesn't prevail, after this ponn farr passes, once her mind is hers again, she shall join him in death.

"Yes, I am." Her eyes lock with Spock's. She will become his property for he will be the victor.

"Choose your champion", the old priest intones, the ritual has to be respected, even if there is only one adult male here with T'Roal.

"As it was in the dawn of our days, as it is today, as it will be for all tomorrows, I make my choice. I choose Spock." He walks to her as she is walking to him, they meet halfway, he looks at her and she looks up at him.

Spock strides past her to the priest, throws a disdainful look at Spunt. "I claim the right. The woman is mine. This is the Vulcan spirit. This is the Vulcan way."

"She is mine!" Spunt hollers, eyes flashing with fire, his rage knows no bounds, the woman would be taken from him, given in exchange for his death. He will not allow it. The two males stare each other down, chest to chest, violence is in the air. The guards come to push and pull everyone back. Tradition must be respected. There is an order to the weapons. It must be honored. Order is the mark of civilization, that which must brand the primitive chaos.

The lirpa sits tight in Spock's hands, muscles remembering lessons long ago taught, applied only once. He feels the blade resonate in his hands, it wants blood, it sings in the wind with the thirst to be quenched. Spunt lunges first, brute strength, the heat of the fever ragging him on. Every thrust, every parry is a cool hand on his brow. Constantly he advances, towering, the dour look turned to murderous rage, he is stronger, his body is stronger, he is no half-breed. But his each lunge is countered, his each strike is blocked. The lirpas are shrieking their bloodthirst. Spunt feigns to the left and Spock follows in a low lunge. Spunt counters right and the cudgel culls Spock under the ribs. He goes sprawling backwards, breath cut short, the pain in his side veiling the sunlight. Spunt logically follows for the one-two combination but the child of two worlds has bigger strengths to call upon than mere logic. Spock rolls towards Spunt, narrowly avoiding the elongated blow, grabs at his knees and brings him down in turn. The lull allows him back to his feet. The fight starts anew. The priest won't call the ahn woons yet.

The lirpas trace their deadly grins against both fighters' skins, and still there is no winner. Spock is limping, another cudgel blow has struck some ribs. Spunt is breathing hard, crouched close to the ground, his lirpa as his crutch. Blood has been spilled, green all around, plenty but not enough. If the men silence the lirpas, the next weapons will be called.

Suddenly Spunt erupts, all arms and legs and bloody edges, in the manner of the warriors of old, in the tradition he so carefully follows. The posture strikes fear in the hearts of enemies and honors bigger strength. It even has a name. But Spunt is no fighting man, he doesn't know the move's fatal flaw, the opening in the center. Spock bends away from the lirpa, tucks towards Spunt, not away from him. His knee grinds in the sand, cloth abrading and breaking against the rough pebbles. And he raises his lirpa as if in salute, bracing it against his bent leg, holding on with all his might. If the shaft breaks, the fight is over. His lirpa holds, cutting Spunt thrust at its heart. And Spunt's lirpa draws a wide circle in the air and comes back around, right where Spock is.

In the appointed place, there is silence as both men roll off in mortal wounds.

"Kroykah!" the old priest yells. The fight is over.

On the red sand, Spunt's head stares open-eyed at a world he sees no more. Spock is on his knees, a sea of green lapping at the sand around him. So this is what dying feels like. He feels T'Roal's hands on his, her anguish screams at his mind, her pleading cries to stay with her, not to go, not to go... He looks at her in sorrow, he wants to heal, he wants to be well, he wants to stay with her. The wound is too deep, the artery has been nicked, help cannot arrive in time. He wishes. How illogical. He wishes they'd had more time, he wishes she'd been there for all his tomorrows, he wishes there were tomorrows to be had. She cries his name. He wants to tell her how sorry he is. He wants to...

xxx

The metronomic beeps of the machines are the only sound in the room. He opens his eyes, closes them again against the light. He wants to breathe but he can't, he feels a pinch at his neck then someone saying "We have to wake him up chemically, the other way's too dangerous when he's just coming out of a coma." Alive. He is still alive. He looks around the room, where is T'Roal, where is she? They can get married now, live like husband and wife in the broad daylight. Spunt is already dead.

Spunt. The name is unfamiliar. The face also. He cannot remember any of the details. He wants to see T'Roal, expects to find her at his bedside. There is someone there, a form is sleeping, exhausted from its vigil, the gold shirt wrinkled and dirty. Jim? What is Jim doing at his bedside? The last time they saw each other... he realized he doesn't remember the last time. But where is T'Roal? He tries to remember her face but her features are indistinct, turning to whispers even as he keeps looking into her eyes. Her eyes. That is the last thing that he sees as sleep envelops him. Her eyes.

xxx

He opens his eyes again. Has he slept? Was there an interval of time during which he was not aware? He knows not. How can he not know? He should know, his physiological clock keeping track of where his life goes. Where is T'Roal? He misses her, wills her to come to him. Why did she bring him to a strange hospital, nothing looks like it belongs on Vulcan. The light is not right, green tints where reds should be. His head aches. There is nobody sleeping by his bed. Jim is not there. Perhaps he dreamed his friend present in his delirious state.

Someone comes in. Spock turns to look at the doctor and is surprised into speechlessness. McCoy has come by, called from wherever he went after Enterprise? Where did he go? The thought lances his head when he tries to remember. He must have been at death's doorstep if the irascible doctor bothered for a house call…

"Ah! Glad you're awake." The doctor is cheerful, the fake cheerfulness Spock knows only too well, he sees the eyes consult the monitors above, know that the lift to his voice hides the keen analysis Bones is secretly conducting before his verdict of healthy or still sick.

Spock just looks at him. He wants to ask where T'Roal is but she may be hiding from the too Human doctor, yearning for discretion. He doesn't trust himself to speak, he knows not why.

Bones eyes him with eagle eyes, but not unkindly. "Do you remember anything?" he asks.

Spock raises a hand as if to speak, lowers it again. The question itself is piercing through his brain. Does he remember anything? There was the ponn farr and the challenge, but even as he thinks about these, their borders take the ill-defined mist of events not happened. And T'Roal? He remembers T'Roal. Except he no longer remembers her eyes. He looks up at Bones, shakes his head mutely. He is no longer sure what he remembers.

Bones sighs, sits at the foot of the bed, careful to avoid contact with his feet. "We're on Vuskeon." He hasn't taken his eyes off Spock's face, sees the minute widening of the eyes. This is going to be worse than what he thought. "Yes, we're on Vuskeon. Do you remember that?"

The slightest shake of the head. No, he doesn't.

"You were doing some research at the library while we were waiting for repairs to be done to Enterprise."

Spock realizes that all he wants to know is what happened with T'Roal. Was she at the library with him? Is that what it was, he thought he was at Shi'Kahr and all this time he was on Vuskeon?

Bones is still talking, letting each sentence be fully understood before he serves up and delivers the next one. "You and Jim met for the day... There was an explosion in the library... The entire compound was devastated."

The entire compound? Is that what happened to... he realizes he no longer remembers the name, let alone the face, or the eyes. He looks again at Bones, encouraging him silently. "If you had been in it..." Bones paused, swallowed visibly. "Still, you were very close to the explosion, the entire plaza was destroyed, the one in front of the library. You remember, you commented on the beauty of its logical ordering."

The plaza. Spock remembers a plaza. He was crossing it to go to the library. That was when she puts her hand on his hand. She.. Who was she?

Bones has waited for him to ask again with a glance. He continues. "Jim was thankfully out of the zone of destruction... He pulled you from the rubble... You were badly hurt... You've been in a coma since." Bones swallows again. "Actually, there was a couple of times when I thought we lost you." He sees his charge's eyes are starting to close. "Well, I'm glad you came through. Now, rest, we can talk again."

xxx

Jim is there the next time he opens his eyes, smiling, looking bone-tired. Then Jim has been sleeping on a chair next to his bed. He wasn't delirious. "Glad you're back with us." Jim's eyes are dancing. "In the nick of time, too, I thought we'd have to leave you behind on Vuskeon." Behind him Bones scowls, his tone reproachful. "Now, Jim, it's not a given that he can come with us when we're departing tomorrow." He looks at Spock. "You may have to catch us at our next port of call."

Spock sees the smile leave Jim's face. He knows that part is not having is friend and that part is not having his First Officer with him. He doesn't remember what is supposed to come next. Ah, yes, ask about their orders. He realizes what Bones knows and Jim refuses to see, that he is in no shape to serve as First Officer. It would be better if they left him behind, to rest and convalesce, come back to normal. He needs to consult his medical file, understand fully what Bones is not sharing.

"I must concur with the doctor." He would prefer not to disappoint his friend but he must. He is not going anywhere the next day, or the day after that. He will be back on Enterprise, of that there is no doubt, but not tomorrow.

Jim scowls. It is rare that Spock agrees with Bones, whose face expresses the shock of the event. He could cajole each one of them independently to go against reason, he cannot change their united front. "It's okay, we're not going far anyway. Just stretch our legs, get a feel for the ship's new capabilities, kick the tires, so to speak." He laughs at the eyebrow flight that greets that last utterance. "I'd explain but I know Bones is ready to kick me out already. Mother hen is very protective." His smile fades, he's serious again. "We came very close..." He won't say the rest, 'to losing you', it might give it existence.

xxx

He is alone in the hospital room, his friends have left, Enterprise is aloft, he is resting, getting stronger, the headaches not as all-encompassing, some memories are slowly coming back, ever so softly. He never knows which are real and which are from the life he lived while he was in a coma. He no longer remembers the details, cannot separate them out, has to trust that eventually his two worlds will reconcile.

He hears the soft and measured step of the new doctor. She's a Vulcan, Bones' insistence that his healing take place under the most favorable auspices. The nurses have been switched, too, Vulcans who know not to touch him, or to limit any touching, his mind still troubled by injury, his ability to shield tentative.

The doctor walks over to the bed, carefully reviewing the monitors, grabs the padd by the bedside and makes quick touches. Male patient, still in the force of youth, severe head injuries, showing signs of recovery, estimated healing date, a week hence. She notes everything in musical Vulcan script, puts the padd on the bed as she starts her physical review. The padd sits by his side, forgotten from patient and doctor alike as he replies to her questions, goes through some quick mental calculations, confirms the headaches are spacing out. In another week, he will be fighting with her to get out, but now he is meek as a lamb and she is pleased that their relationship is without controversy.

Called by gravity and helped by small movements, the padd starts sliding off the bed. She quickly grabs it, but not before his hand is already there and the padd is securely held. She inadvertently covers his hand with hers.

She whips her hand back as if she has been bitten, coloring green as she mumbles the customary apology, it is her usually who knows more about her patients, not the other way around. She will see him naked more readily than she will touch his mind, as he has touched hers. He doesn't respond, doesn't accept her apologies, only looks at her with cocked head as if this is reminiscent of something he once knew. They now know more of each other than any of them would like.

"I am Spock." He says, very illogically, she already knows his name. But if they touched minds, the least he can do is formerly introduce himself.

"Dr. T'Prenn." She clears her throat, the tips of her ears showing her embarrassment, trying hard to reclaim the blanket of professionalism that she has so unwittingly discarded.

"I am First Officer of the Starship Enterprise." He wants to know more about her, after all, he's already seen plenty.

"I am a Medical Doctor at the Vuskeon Central Hospital." She knows he already knows that.

He nods and she leaves. Of course, since he is still bedridden. As she crosses the doorstep, she turns and glances back at him. Something hovers around the edge of his mind, a face or a feeling. He knows not whether real or made-up memory, but there is a sorrow in him that has been filled.

xxxxxxx


End file.
